


Harry Potter and the Girl Who Lived

by Lyasa



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 1: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Harry Potter Has a Twin, Harry Potter is Not the Boy-Who-Lived, Slytherin Harry Potter, but not in an edgy way, experiments in trying to write a cliché in a less clichéd way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:40:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24628684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyasa/pseuds/Lyasa
Summary: Harry ignores Rose. Rose ignores Harry. This all works well, right up until it doesn't.In which Harry has suspicions regarding a certain Defence teacher, friendships are born, a high-stakes game of chess is played, and the Potter twins fight a lot.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 31





	Harry Potter and the Girl Who Lived

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to be British, but it probably didn't work out too well, so sorry about that. Apparently dialects aren't that easy to just switch off, especially when it's your second language. I hope it's at least not too jarring.

It was the middle of the night when all the puzzle pieces in Harry's mind finally clicked into place. His dormmates were all sleeping soundly already, but Goyle's snoring had kept him from sleep. He had been drowsy, but as soon as the realisation hit, he found himself wide awake.

Because Harry Potter _knew something_ now, something very concerning, and he had no idea what to do with it. A part of his brain said he should leave it be and wait for the adults to take action but another, larger part of his brain reminded him that he could never rely on adults, and if he wanted to protect anyone he should do it himself.

And he did want to protect people. So he let out a deep sigh, the deepest his lungs could muster, and came to a decision.

He was going to have to talk to the Headmaster.

It was no secret that Professor Dumbledore didn't like him. Of course, if you asked the Headmaster, he would deny it, but Harry had eyes and a sense of when he was disliked, and he would swear he once saw Professor Dumbledore disappear into a secret passage near the staircase on the fourth floor just to avoid him. But the Professor did tell all the first years back in September that they could approach him with anything, and he was looking straight at Harry as he stressed the word "anything" again, so he supposed he would have to take that chance.

He could have gone to Professor Snape too, seeing as he was Harry's Head of House, but between the two teachers who visibly disliked him, the Headmaster was at least likely to listen if he said something, instead of sending him off without a word. Which is exactly what Professor Snape did the last time he tried to ask something, even though it was his job to help out the students of Slytherin House.

 _Well, no time like the present then,_ he thought and he climbed out of bed, trying to be quiet. He managed it almost all the way to the door, where he tripped in one of his dormmates' shoes. On the far side of the room, Malfoy stirred. The muted green light illuminating the chamber cast peculiar shadows over his pale face.

"It's all right," Harry whispered. "Just going to the loo. Go back to sleep." Malfoy turned, mumbling something incoherently.

He slipped out the door unimpeded. The common room was empty and eerily silent, though it rarely was full of chatter anyway. Conversations here were always more subdued, the environment lending a strange gravitas to even the silliest of topics. Harry loved the Slytherin common room with its shifting green lights and serious atmosphere, and the way your voice echoed if you stood in just the right spot. He had been hesitant at first, but the more time he spent with his housemates, the more they grew on him. The reverse was true too, even if most if them wouldn't admit it.

Outside was similarly quiet. It seemed no one else felt like breaking the rules and going on a late-night excursion today, except for Harry, and he did have a good reason.

He shivered a little in the chill of the dungeons. While it was a warm summer night outside, the warmth never quite reached this far down underground. It probably remained this cool and damp during the hottest parts of the summer too, the times when no student was at the castle.

Which brought him to another problem: Not the cold, no, the fact that he was in the dungeons, and the Headmaster's office was on the seventh floor. That was eight staircases he'd have to walk up - no, not eight, nine, the Hufflepuffs were a level above Slytherins, but still in the basement. Nine staircases, and that's if he didn't get lost.

He set out to the stairs, hoping in a corner of his mind to find some kind of charmed secret passage that led straight to the upper levels. But it was something else surprising he found instead in the brightly lit basement corridor above, when he collided with what seemed to be empty air.

The impact sent him sprawling on the floor, which was much warmer than the dungeon floors. He considered this injustice for a split second and then discarded it, turning his full attention to whatever he tripped in.

Whatever turned out to be a _whoever_ instead, with messy reddish-brown hair, a pale pink scar shaped like lightning on her forehead, and the same emerald green eyes as Harry himself. Rose Potter, first-year Hufflepuff, the Girl Who Lived, Harry's much more famous twin sister. (And wasn't _that_ a shock to find out. Did you think you were an orphan with no family left, Harry Potter? Well, you thought _wrong_.)

Correction: It was Rose Potter's head, floating at its correct height above the floor.

"Did you lose the rest of your body somewhere?" Harry asked pleasantly, stretching his hand out towards the empty air. His fingers touched smooth fabric and he drew them back sharply as if something had burned him. "What's that?"

"Shut up," Rose said, and then she seemed to realise that was a bit too harsh. "It's an invisibility cloak. I got it for Christmas."

"Of course you did." Bitterness laced Harry's quiet words, twisting them into something sharp and biting. Rose took a step back defensively.

"What are you even doing here?" she asked.

"What are _you_ doing here?" Harry challenged. There would have been no harm in answering, but he didn't owe Rose anything, and it was none of her business anyway.

"None of your business," Rose replied, shoving a fistful of toffee in her mouth unrepentantly. Maybe there was something to the theory that twins could read each other's mind.

Harry ignored his sister's obnoxious chewing noises maximised for his discomfort, and pondered, not for the first time, why fate seemed to have it out for him. It wouldn't have been entirely fair to say that everything in his life was terrible - for one his best friend, Victoria was far from terrible and his current foster parents weren't the bad sort either - but most things, as a rule, were.

Take Rose, for example. Rose, who was famous and well-known, while no one ever paid _him_ a second glance. Rose, who their aunt and uncle kept and raised, while they put him in foster care without a thought. Rose, who was apparently getting invisibility cloaks for Christmas while Harry's own Christmas was spent without presents because as much as Victoria was his friend, she didn't have a magic owl to send presents with.

Rose, who had just dragged him up from the floor and covered them both with her invisibility cloak. Harry moved to shake it off, but Rose caught his forearm in a vice-like grip.

"Are you insane?" she hissed at him. "That's Mrs. Norris over there, do you _want_ to get caught out of bed this late?"

They stood frozen still while the cat sniffed the floor around them suspiciously. It was clear she could sense them, but apparently even a keen-eyed cat was no match for Rose's invisibility cloak.

He moved away from Rose as soon as the coast was clear, letting the cloak fall to the ground. "Maybe I do want to get caught," he whispered back harshly. "I'm going to see Professor Dumbledore anyway, I'm sure that's a good excuse."

"Why do you want to talk to Dumbledore in the middle of the night?"

Harry bit back a reflexive 'none of your business', and settled on "Why do you care? You're not involved. Not everything is about you," he couldn't resist adding.

It seemed to be wrong thing to say, as Rose pursed her lips. "And how would you know that? Maybe I was going to see Dumbledore too."

"You weren't," said Harry, sure of the truth in his words.

But Rose, it seemed, was determined to annoy him in every possible way. "Yes I was," she decided. "I'm coming with you. And it's a good thing I am," she held up a finger, "because if Filch catches you outside after curfew, I don't think he'd care you were just going to see Dumbledore. But he won't catch us if I'm coming, because _I_ have an invisibility cloak!"

She put her hand back down, a satisfied smile on her face. Harry had to admit, she did have a point about that. It's not like he could just go up to Filch and tell him he had something very important to tell Professor Dumbledore, and that if he cared about the safety of students, he should let Harry say it.

For one, he didn't get the impression that Filch ever cared about the safety of students.

*

So here Harry was, stuck walking the corridors with his unwanted company of one, and her very useful invisibility cloak. They passed Mrs. Norris twice more – that cat was either more magical than everyone thought or knew shortcuts no one else did - and an older pair of Ravenclaws whispering to each other in one hallway.

They have just skirted around the Slytherin prefect patrolling the third floor - Travers, with her usual sour expression in place - when they heard shouting and the steady patter of someone running across stone floors.

"Professor, professor please!" A girl's voice pleaded. "Please listen to me, I need to talk to Professor Dumbledore, it's very important!"

The siblings shared a look. "Seems like you're not the only one," Rose whispered. Harry shushed her.

The cool voice of their Transfiguration teacher followed. "The Headmaster is not available right now, he has been called to the Ministry. Whatever you want to tell him can probably wait until tomorrow."

"But–"

"Or, you can tell me and I'll make sure to pass it on to him as soon as he gets back," Professor McGonagall said, her tone a touch softer.

"I..." There was a moment of hesitation. "I heard Professor Snape threaten Professor Quirrell and he was talking about stealing something and he _used to be a Death Eater!_ " The girl's voice got higher and higher in the course of her rushed explanation, that last accusation ringing out clear in the silence of the castle.

"...I see," Professor McGonagall replied in a measured but cold voice. "I have the utmost confidence in Professor Snape, and I can assure you the Headmaster does as well. He is a respected teacher of Hogwarts and wouldn't be here if Professor Dumbledore thought him a danger to any of our students."

Rose's fingers gripped Harry's forearm tight enough to cut off all circulation, but for once he didn't complain. Both of them stood under cloak still as statues, whether frozen in shock or fear of being caught, neither knew.

"But Professor-"

"Go back to your dorm, Miss Granger. And be aware, if I catch you outside after curfew again, I will take points. Yes, from my own house."

Hermione Granger's faint protests went unheard and soon enough they saw her round the corner of the corridor. Dragging her feet, shoulders slumped, she was the very definition of dejected.

As soon as she reached their hiding place, Harry's hand shot out from under the cloak lightning-fast and grabbed her arm. She gave a startled yelp as she whirled around, and Harry quickly shook the cloak off, leaving Rose to stand there with it bunched in her hands.

"What do you mean Professor Snape used to be a Death Eater?" Harry demanded. Rose put a hand on his shoulders and dragged him backwards by force.

"Don't be a prat," she chided. "I know it's difficult for you, but at least give it a try." Harry tried not to pay her words any mind.

"What are you two doing here?" Granger asked, aghast. Rose coughed awkwardly.

"I, er..."

"We just..." The two Potters started at the same time.

They both fell silent. Harry sent a nasty look towards his sister, who pretended not to notice it.

"We were just... around," was what he settled on, earning him a flat, disbelieving look. "Er, you were saying something about Snape and Quirrell?"

Granger took a second to collect herself. "Were you listening in? That is-" An impatient gesture from Harry cut her short. "Yes, alright, I wanted to talk to the Headmaster because I _know_ what I heard but no one believed me when I told them and- And you _heard all of that,_ " she accused. "Why are you outside after curfew? Someone could catch you breaking the rules!"

"I have an invisibility cloak," Rose pointed out, holding it up for good measure.

That didn't help at all. In fact, it might have just made everything worse. Granger gaped at her. "I should tell Professor McGonagall about that!"

"No, don't!" Rose said, eyes wide. "Please just forget it!"

"I don't know what she is breaking curfew for, but I, for one, was going to tell the Headmaster that Professor Quirrell is deliberately putting students in danger," Harry cut in impatiently.

Silence. Two pairs of eyes, one brown and one emerald green, staring at him with twin looks of incredulity. Harry shifted in place self-consciously. He probably should have eased them into it somehow, but he was simply dying to tell someone his findings. It would have been better if that someone wasn't his sister, but it's not like there was anyone else around here.

"What?" The two girls said at the same time, shrill in the sudden quiet. They shot a glance at each other, and then Granger continued. "That doesn't make sense."

"On Halloween," Harry started impatiently, "he let the troll in on purpose. He said it was in the dungeons, but we went back to the dungeons and it wasn't there! And one of the older girls said he was always good at dealing with trolls, even when he was still a Muggle Studies professor. He shouldn't be scared of one."

"The troll was here on the third floor," said Granger. She flushed under the others' curious stare. "I was here with Lavender Brown and we saw it," she mumbled. "We did see Professor Quirrell too, now that I think about it... And he didn't seem scared at all."

"But then what was it that you said about Snape threatening Quirrell? Do you think..." Rose dropped her voice. "Do you think he threatened Quirrell into working for him?"

It was all too easy to imagine the fearsome Potions teacher terrorising the frightened, stuttering Quirrell into doing what he wanted. But frightened, stuttering Quirrell himself being an act? Harry knew that was harder to stomach, but he would still rather concentrate on that than on the possibility of his Head of House being a follower of the dark wizard who killed his parents. He was supposed to be someone Harry could trust, and this suggestion left him feeling off-kilter and just a bit terrified.

"Maybe Professor Quirrell let the troll in on his orders," Granger agreed, biting her lip absently. "But that still doesn't explain why, or what they want to steal..." She shook her head.

Rose held a hand up on instinct, then quickly put it back down again. "I, um, I may have an idea," she said sheepishly. "Maybe it's the thing they're keeping in the forbidden corridor? You know, right there," she pointed to the left, towards the dark and foreboding locked door the students were warned about on the first day.

Granger's eyes widened. "You mean whatever that big three-headed dog is guarding?"

"Yes, exactly! Wait, how do you know about the three-headed dog?"

The Gryffindor looked down at her shoes, cheeks flushed. "I got lost one night, because Parvati Patil said... Nevermind, and then I couldn't come back because Neville Longbottom and the portrait and..." Her meandering explanation ended in half-hearted mumbles. "Anyway, it doesn't matter! How do _you_ know about it?" 

"Hagrid told me about him. On accident. His name is Fluffy," said Rose. It did not explain anything in the slightest.

"Am I the only one who had no idea there was a big, three-headed dog at Hogwarts?" Harry wondered. He had talked to the gamekeeper once or twice, who seemed nice and on second thought, exactly the kind of person who would let a three-headed dog into the school. "Isn't that kind of dangerous? What is worth guarding so much?"

His sister frowned. "I don't know," she admitted grudgingly. "I tried to get Hagrid to talk about it, but he clammed up. Wouldn't tell me anything."

Harry smiled thinly. "What are you even good for, then?" Rose bristled at the insult. She puffed her chest out, ready to retaliate with a similarly biting retort, but a soft intake of breath from her left side stopped her in her tracks.

Though it was hard to tell, what with the dimness of the corridor and her dark complexion, but Granger appeared to pale. "I think we're forgetting something," she whispered, a nervous tremor in her voice. "Professor Snape - or maybe someone else," she added, still not quite feeling confident in accusing a teacher of something this terrible, "wants to steal whatever they're hiding here. He's been waiting all year for a perfect opportunity and now _Dumbledore isn't here!"_

She let her words sink in for a second, before adding, more quiet this time, "We have to stop him." With that, she turned tail and ran, straight towards the forbidden corridor.

And in a split-second decision that would later be difficult to explain away as Slytherin cunning, or indeed, anything else but sheer Gryffindor bravery, Harry ran after her.

*

They stood in the forbidden corridor, that place of dangers and secrets, watching as the terrifying, gigantic three-headed dog - Fluffy - snored merrily and so loud it felt like every breath shook the castle itself.

An enchanted harp at the dog's feet played music all by itself, a simple but clear, looping lullaby. Near it, set in the ground, was a trapdoor, its gaping maw open to sinister, inky darkness.

"I think someone's already in there," Granger whispered, stating the obvious.

Harry swallowed. "Do you think... Do you think we need to jump down there?" His distaste for the idea was obvious on his face.

The three of them glanced at each other. "I... really... don't want to," Granger muttered reluctantly. "But if there's no other way..."

To be fair, it wasn't a very inviting concept. The trapdoor led into darkness which made it hard to see how deep the chasm was. It could have been a few metres deep, or it could have led down to the dungeons. It was impossible to tell.

"I'll do it," said Rose, surprising even herself. She hadn't known she was going to say it until the words have already left her mouth, and she would have loved to take it back, but now it was too late. She squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and sprinted towards the trapdoor.

"At least use a cushioning charm!" Granger cried out. "Madam Hooch showed it to us for a reason!"

"I don't remember the spell!" And then she was falling. It was a familiar feeling, the same exhilaration and weightlessness she felt the first time her hands grasped the handle of a broom and she felt the laws of gravity give way to magic beneath her. She felt a laugh bubbling up out of her chest, a stark contrast to the terror in her mind.

Belatedly, the incantation for the cushioning charm came to her mind, but there was no need for it, because something soft broke her fall. "It's all right!" Rose shouted up towards that distant rectangle of light. "I landed on something. You can come down!"

There was a shriek in the air as the other two tumbled down. Just in time, because the lullaby above had petered out, and drowsy but very much awake growling took its place.

"That was positively Gryffindor of you," Harry panted, grudging appreciation in his voice.

"The hat took it into consideration." It did. Rose had snorted at that and said she much preferred to hide instead of fighting, having practically made herself a spectre at her old school to escape her cousin's bullying, and that couldn't really be called brave now, could it? But maybe there was something to it after all.

She tried to move and feel out where they landed, but to her shock she found herself bound by strong tendrils that had crept up her legs and twined around her waist without her noticing.

"Not to make anyone panic," said Granger - no, Hermione. Once someone jumped down a trapdoor after you, you were on first-name basis, in Rose's opinion. Maybe it was fast, but these kind of situations called for fast decisions. "But I think we've landed on Devil's Snare!" She sounded definitely panicked.

"What do we do now?" Rose asked in horror.

Harry was lucky enough that the plants haven't got a firm grip on him yet, only twined loosely around his ankles. He leapt up and started pulling at them, kicking at any of the vines that crept towards him. "Aren't you the Hufflepuff?" he shouted. "I thought your house was all about plants! Figure it out!"

"Why should I know? I don't even like plants!"

"Quiet!" Hermione cried out. "Let me think! Devil's Snare likes cold and damp environments and the more you struggle the tighter it coils around you, so keep calm!" She herself stood near the wall of the chamber, her left leg completely encased in vines, but she held her arms and wand up above her head, out of reach for the plant. "There's got to be something... Yes, I've got it!" She clapped her hands together. _"_ _Lumos!"_

Waving her wand madly, she dashed towards Rose to help. The vines around her shrank back as if the light had burned them. They let go of Rose quickly, and losing her balance, she stumbled and fell right onto the cold stone. That was definitely going to bruise later.

On the other side of the chamber Harry followed Hermione's example and quickly cleared a path through the thick maze of tendrils and vines towards a narrow, sloping passage. Rose grabbed Hermione's hand to help herself off the floor, and the two girls broke into a run. They practically fell through the passage, Hermione's shoes and Rose's sock-clad feet skidding across the stone floor into an enormous, brightly lit chamber.

*

The obstacle of the keys didn't cause them much difficulty. Hermione tried the unlocking charm on the door first, and then once again in frustration when it didn't work. They quickly worked it out that what seemed to be colourful tropical birds flying overhead, weren't actually birds at all, but keys, hundreds of them.

There were brooms standing by the wall. Rose reached for one, but before she could grasp it, Harry stole it away. "I wanted that one," she hissed.

"They're all the same kind," Harry replied, unconcerned. Try as he might, it was blatantly obvious he did it to provoke her.

Rose huffed. "Are you even sure you want to try your hand at finding the key? Maybe you should leave that to people who can _see._ " She made circles with her fingers and put them in front of her eyes to drive her point about glasses home.

Hermione hadn't talked to either of them at length before this, but it was clear from her put-out sigh that she'd already had enough of their petty bickering. She swept her curly hair over her shoulder and mounted a broom, leaving them to it. The two of the followed soon after, and in the end it was Harry who caught the key, much to Rose's dismay.

The problems started when they opened the door and came face-to-face with a chessboard of gigantic proportions. The black chessmen had their backs to the trio, who felt dwarfed by them, while the white chessmen stood obstructing the next door.

"Do you think we need to play a game?" Hermione asked, eyes wide. "Are either of you good at it?" She turned imploring eyes on them.

Harry shook his head. "I used to be part of a chess club at school, but I was always rubbish at strategy."

"I don't even know the rules," Rose admitted.

"Not very intellectual, are we?" Harry asked snidely.

She flushed at the insult. "No, I guess _we_ aren't," she retorted. They were both rearing up for a fight, but Hermione cut it short.

"All right," she said loudly, ignoring their spat. "All right. We can do this." It wasn't clear if she was trying to convince them or herself.

"So do we need to just... direct them?" Rose asked. "That seems too easy."

"It does." Hermione shook her head decisively. "No, I think we'll need to join them. Take the place of a rook or-" At her words one of the enormous black bishops came to life and, with grinding sound of stone on stone, moved off the chessboard. "Er, yes," she said, surprised. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"All right," she said again, having come to a decision. "Rose, I think you should be the rook. Harry, you go be the bishop on the left side, and I'll... I'll be the queen." Neither of the Potters protested. Even if book smarts didn't translate that well to chess, Hermione was clearly their best chance at winning this. It was only logical she would take the place of an important piece.

"White starts the game," Harry whispered, and indeed, one the white pawns moved two squares forward.

Hermione swallowed. "Any ideas?" A shrug and a headshake were her only answers. "Okay. Pawn to..." She frowned. "E5."

There was silence in the chamber, except for the grinding noise of stone on stone whenever a piece moved. "You know," Rose mumbled to herself, "when I heard 'wizard's chess', I imagined something more interesting than simply normal chess but the pieces move on their own."

Her wish was soon granted, when one of the white rooks took a pawn. It smashed the pawn to the ground with deadly force and dragged it off the board. The trio could only stare speechlessly at the brutal spectacle.

"So, we should try not to get taken unless we want to get hit in the head and get a concussion or brain damage," Harry surmised. His voice was steady but his hands shook where he grabbed the edges of his robe.

"That only happens when you have a brain, so I think you're safe there," said Rose. She noted how Harry grit his teeth, thrilled to know she found a button she could push.

The white pieces were ruthless. They took more of the black players, the white queen gliding along the board like a merciless omen of death, while the trio steadily grew more and more desperate.

"I should have dragged Ronald Weasley with me," Hermione muttered darkly after she accidentally sent one of their knights into a well-executed trap.

"Is he good at chess?" asked Rose.

"Very," Hermione confirmed with a pinched expression, like it pained her to admit it.

They did manage to get some white pieces off the board as well. Hermione as the queen moved on the board with the most purpose, taking everything in her way, but she was always careful. Still on a few memorable occasions Harry or Rose had to come to her rescue.

But as the tension of the game grew, so did the tension and frequency of biting comments exchanged between the Potter twins. When Rose advised a move that turned out badly, Harry insulted her intelligence. When Harry almost walked into a trap, Rose jeered at him. Hermione tried to ignore them both, but judging by how hard she was clenching her jaw, she was very close to blowing up at them.

The spark that lit the powder keg in the end was a remark not at all unlike the ones they've been throwing at each other, if one that had hit the mark a little too well.

Harry stood eye-to-eye with the white queen. Well, eye-to-midsection, really. "Please don't kill me," he chanted, eyes shut tight in horror. "Please, please, don't kill me, go somewhere else, have another piece make the move, please."

A grinding noise from his left. The white rook moved forward three paces. Harry exhaled loudly, slumping in relief. "Never thought a game of chess could be this tense. At least if I die, 'killed by an enormous chess piece' would be a pretty baller way to go out."

That was when Rose turned to say, snidely, "Not like anyone would miss you."

Harry fell silent. "What do you mean?" he asked slowly, his voice cold as ice. Even Hermione winced.

"Can we-" she started, but Rose cut her off.

"I meant what I said," she answered, her words dripping false, syrupy sweetness. "Maybe we'd be better off without you, as a whole. I know I would be."

Harry clenched his fists and took a deep breath, probably trying to calm himself down. It was not very effective. "What the hell is wrong with you?" he exploded.

"That really was... a bit... very unnecessary," Hermione said, lifting her hands in a placating motion. Her quiet, mellow words were ignored, as the tension that has been slowly building between the twins finally snapped.

"What the hell is wrong with _me?_ " Rose yelled back from the other side of the chessboard. "What's wrong with me is that I don't want you around! That's it! I've tried so hard to... to..." her last sentence trailed off into a frustrated scream.

"Tried _so hard?"_ Harry mocked. "Yes, you've really been trying so hard to keep yourself in the spotlight! You just can't handle not being the centre of attention, the perfect, famous Girl-Who-Lived! It must be so inconvenient to have to share a name with me!"

Rose could barely see through the anger clouding her vision, as all the emotions she had been bottling up since September finally found their way to the surface. "I wanted to _be your friend!_ I tried so hard, I was so excited to meet you and then it turned out you want nothing to do with me! And I don't even know why I was surprised, because it was nothing new, just another member of my supposed family who _doesn't want me!"_

"Like you know what it's like to be unwanted," Harry bit out venomously. He took a step forward, forgetting himself and their surroundings for just a split second. It was just enough time to make a mistake like that.

"Harry!" Hermione shrieked. Harry looked down where his left foot was resting on the white square beside him. His eyes widened.

"Do I have to move now?" he asked. Hermione nodded fervently. He sighed and stepped over to the white square, and then diagonally to the black square across where he originally stood. "A move wasted," he mumbled to himself.

Hermione shook her head desperately. "Don't stop there!" she yelled. "You're in the line of fire for the knight! Go, go, go!"

Harry ran across the board, behind the few of their pawns that were still standing, almost colliding into the remaining black knight. When he finally put a stop to his momentum, he was standing almost right beside Rose, only one or two squares between them.

"This may be a surprise to you," Rose said, quieter but no less furious, "considering what a nice picture you've built up in your head, but really, you don't know _anything_ about me."

"I don't need to," said Harry, "and I don't particularly care." His face twisted. "You've had it better than me all your life. All everyone seems to care about is you!"

"I've had it better?" Rose's tone was that of flat disbelief. "Really? Me?"

"You have a family," Harry said harshly.

"In case you haven't noticed, we're twins. You _are_ family."

"Well that's definitely not what our aunt and uncle thought when they gave me up for adoption."

"Believe me, you're better off."

Harry ignored her and soldiered on. "Everyone always only cares about you, even when we were just infants. There's two children and one is the Girl-Who-Lived, who destroyed You-Know-Who! And the other one? Who cares about the spare? Let the foster system have him!" The bitterness he'd been carrying with him ever since he'd learned about the family he never knew he had finally bubbled to the surface. "They didn't care about me but they kept _you!"_ he yelled.

 _"I wish they hadn't!"_ Rose screamed back.

They stared at each other, panting and red in the face. At this moment, if one ignored the superficial differences of gender or hair color (or glasses and the color of the trims on their robes), they could have been mirror images of each other, with the same expressions of anger and bone-deep hurt on their faces as every old wound was torn open again.

"You don't know them. Our aunt and uncle. You have no idea what you're talking about," Rose said, softer, after they had both calmed down somewhat. She pursed her lips. Maybe Harry was right, in a way. Maybe it was terrible of the Dursleys to give him up, maybe just as terrible as it was of them to take her in. "Maybe..." she started uncertainly, and then she shut her mouth tight.

"Maybe...?" Harry prompted.

Rose didn't owe him anything. She didn't owe him her reasons, her life story, an apology, not when he never even tried to see things from her perspective, so entrenched in his own ideas. And yet, she could feel the words tumbling past her lips. "Maybe they're just horrible people. Maybe they're horrible people, and you don't want anything to with them. Ever thought of that? I mean, who just puts one child into foster care and keeps the other?" A small, bitter laugh escaped her lips. "Maybe it wasn't even about us. Maybe they just flipped a coin."

She didn't know why the Dursleys had kept her but not Harry, and she wasn't sure she wanted to know. But she was almost completely sure she would have preferred it if things had been the other way around.

Harry nodded slowly, visibly gearing up to say something. Oh, no, not if Rose had anything to say about it. That was all the apology he was going to get, and he better not say anything else.

So, Rose injected some false cheer into her voice. "Besides," she said, "you have friends! I've never had any friends!"

Harry looked taken aback at the direction their argument had suddenly taken. "What?"

"You talk about them all the time! Victoria this and Benji that, it's all I ever hear when you're around!" Rose shook her head vehemently. "You have people who _care_ about you! I've never had that!"

"I- What- Why are you listening in on my conversations?"

"You're _loud!"_ For Rose, who had spent most of her soon-to-be twelve years of life making no noise in her room and pretending she didn't exist, being loud was tantamount to a crime. "And you're friends with Malfoy! _Malfoy!"_

"I'm not!" Harry defended himself. "I think he's an arse! It's just very difficult to be enemies with someone when you sleep in the same room. And-" he struggled to find the words. "You have friends too! You're friends with Hannah Abbott!"

Rose frowned. "Not really. The only thing we have in common is that we both like cats, it's not really a... a friendship. It would just be really awkward if we slept in the same dorm and didn't talk at all."

"That's what I'm saying!" Harry said triumphantly.

They were on safer grounds now, the fire of their argument reduced to just a few smouldering embers, waiting patiently for the right breeze to ignite it once again. But that was a possibility on the far-off horizon of the future. For now, Rose was content to let it simmer down once again.

Hermione cleared her throat. "Rose, would you please move two steps forward?"

Oh. Right. The game was still on. And they'd left Hermione to deal with it all by herself, so lost in airing their grievances with each other. Rose ducked her head guiltily. "Sorry," she mumbled, and stepped forward.

The game continued. The white queen took out their other bishop. Harry captured the white knight. Working as a team, they managed to get the white king in check twice; once by the other rook - the one Rose didn't take the place of - and once by Hermione herself, but it was a short-lived victory on both counts.

There were increasingly less and less pieces on the board. "What if it ends in a draw?" Rose whispered when Hermione got near. The other girl simply shrugged in response. A white rook moved on the other side, a clever move that had their king in check. The trio glanced at each other. "I could move between them?" Rose suggested.

Hermione shook her head. "No, you'd be in danger." She worried at her bottom lip, trying to come up with another solution.

Harry was deep in thought. "We can capture the rook," he said finally. "Knight to C2."

The knight moved, with that same rumble of noise that was starting to irritate Rose's ears. Hermione nodded absently, and then her eyes widened in horror. "No, no, that knight was protecting you from the queen!"

Harry turned ashen. "What? Oh, no..." It was too late. The black knight dragged the motionless white rook off the board, leaving Harry standing there defenseless against the queen once again. What came next was fast, but to Rose's eyes it all played out as if in slow motion. The queen moved. Three squares, diagonally, right where Harry was.

"Harry!" Rose screamed. "I'm so sorry, I didn't actually mean it, please don't-!" The queen raised her stone arm and struck Harry across the head. He crashed to the floor, like a marionette whose strings had been cut, and as the queen dragged him off the board, Rose could do nothing but watch, shaking and pale. She regretted a lot of things in that one small moment, but all she could do was stand on her own square, still as a statue.

"We need to continue," Hermione said in a small voice. So they did.

They must have played a good game in the end, even with the odds stacked against them, but Rose knew she would never be able to recall it later, lost as she was in the fog of her thoughts, in the helpless terror she felt every time she looked the crumpled body of her brother on the floor.

Here's what she remembered: Tapping the white rook and watching as it obediently slid off the board. Hermione's voice, quiet as she told her to move to the side, to get the king in check. Their absolute shock when, after a moment of silent deliberation, the white king took of his crown and threw it at Rose's feet.

"We won? B-but..." Hermione stuttered. "If the king moved to the- no, no, our knight's there, but... We won!" she repeated, a smile lighting up her features. "It's over!"

Rose stared at the crown by her feet for a second, mesmerised, but at Hermione's words she shook herself as if waking up from a trance and dashed off the board. She ran over to her brother's prone body on the floor, feeling like the worst sister in existence. All the things she's told him, all the terrible things... When he wakes up, she'd have a hell of a lot to apologise for.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw his chest rise and fall. "He's alright," she called out. "He's alright," she repeated, quieter, just to reassure herself.

Hermione stepped beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. "We should go on," she said.

Rose shook her head vehemently. "We can't leave him here!"

"Well we can't take him with us either!" Hermione protested. "He's too heavy to just carry around!"

"But... I don't want to leave him here," Rose admitted, biting her lip. "Anything could happen." Hermione squeezed her shoulder sympathetically.

"We'll come back for him, okay? I promise. But he'd be in more danger if we took him with us." Rose gave a reluctant nod, and they walked through the chessboard, over to the next chamber.

*

It was just the two of them now, and Rose couldn't shake the feeling that something terrible was going to happen while Harry lay there on the ground, unprotected. But Hermione was right; they couldn't just give up now, not when Snape (or... someone) was still ahead of them, looking to steal whatever the school was guarding so heavily.

There was a foul smell lingering in the air and it didn't take much work to see where it came from. A troll was laid out on the floor before them, with a bloody lump on its head, clearly unconscious.

"Quirrell..." Hermione whispered in disbelief.

Rose pulled her robes over her nose. "At least we don't have to fight it. Come on, let's go already, I can't breathe," she tugged on Hermione's hand, who allowed herself to be led to the next door, and to the chamber waiting ahead, with a table and seven bottles on it.

As soon as they stepped through the next door, flames shot up behind them, trapping them inside. Rose's eyes widened. "No!" There was no way back now, no way to return to Harry. She strained her eyes desperately, but she could see nothing through the blue flames.

"Don't panic," said Hermione authoritatively. "We'll be fine." She grabbed a roll of parchment off the table. "Look, we have clues! One of these bottles would let us move back through those flames, and one forward!"

"And the other five?"

Hermione grimaced. "Er. Nettle wine and poison."

"Oh," Rose said blandly. "Poison. Brilliant."

"But there are clues! I can solve it! Look," Hermione pointed to the biggest and the smallest bottle. "According to this, there is definitely no poison in those. And that," now she pointed to the bottle on the far right end, "is also not poison, because here it says that, poison is always on the left side of nettle wine! And then the two there are the same, and we know that that one is not poison because it's the smallest, so therefore..." That last part was not directed towards Rose, but rather muttered to herself as she began to walk up and down the length of the table.

Rose wasn't too proud to admit that most of Hermione's logical deductions flew over her head. She simply didn't have the gift for it. But for Hermione, it only took the better part of a minute before she clapped her hands and turned to Rose with a blinding smile.

"I've got it!" She announced, with two bottles in hand. "This one," she held her left hand up, "will take us back through the blue flames, and the other one will let us go forward through the black flames."

Rose looked at the tiny bottle that was their key forwards. "There's not enough for two of us there," she said hesitantly. "Barely enough for one, really."

Hermione nodded thoughtfully. "One of us will have to go back," she decided. "For Harry. And then…"

"And then get an owl and write to Dumbledore," Rose suggested. "I…" she paused, biting her lip. She would have loved nothing more than go back for Harry, to be certain he would be safe and alright, but… It somehow didn't feel right to retreat now and leave Hermione to it alone. "I think it should be you. I don't know, I just have a... a feeling. If that's really Snape in there, and he really used to follow V-Voldemort," her voice cracked a little on the name, "well… I already got lucky once." She raised her hand to her scar on instinct. "Maybe I'll get lucky again."

It was terrible to think that a teacher, someone she should have been able to trust, might have worked for the darkest wizard in recent history, especially because it didn't seem all that unlikely. Rose has always felt like the Potions teacher hated her. Well, maybe not exactly hated, not by his standards, but certainly disliked.

Other than the spectacle of her very first Potions class, where he had quizzed her on the whole textbook with derision in his voice, he had turned to the strategy of simply ignoring her. Whenever Rose and Hannah paired up in class, only Hannah got both the criticism and the grudging praise. If Rose had a question in class, or even an answer to a question, she could put her hand up all she wanted; Snape's eyes would slide over her without pause. From what she heard, this was not out of the norm for him and his legendary feud against all things Gryffindor, but he certainly never showed this much scorn towards another Hufflepuff.

Hermione nodded gravely. "Alright," she said. "I'll do it. I'll take a school owl and alert Dumbledore." She paused. "And I, er, for what it's worth, I… I've seen you in the library sometimes and in Charms class, and…" she broke off, flustered. "What I'm trying to say is, I think you can do this. I'd go with you if I could, so you wouldn't have to do this alone, but I think- I think you'll be great."

"Oh…" Rose whispered, touched. She shot a small, hesitant smile at Hermione. "Thank you. Really."

Hermione smiled back. "Well then," she said, "cheers!" And she took a swig from her bottle. "Eugh." She shuddered.

"Is it bad?" Rose asked in concern.

Hermione shook her head. "No, but it feels like ice. I should go, before it wears off." She stopped before the blue flames for just one more second, and looked back over her shoulder. "Be careful. I'll be quick, I'll take Harry and I'll tell Dumbledore and-" she paused and took a breath. "Be careful."

And then she was gone, and Rose was left alone standing in the middle of the chamber. She lifted the tiny bottle and downed it all in one go. It really did feel like ice was spreading through her veins, a strange and uncomfortable sensation. "Cheers," she said to herself, quietly.

She squared her shoulders, straightened her back, took a deep breath, and walked through the flames.

*

If this had been a different story and Rose a different person, maybe the focal point would have been what occurred after she stepped through the flames and into the last chamber.

Maybe the emphasis would have been on the moment she saw Quirrell, and Quirrell saw her. The moment he told her his plan and laughed, cold and sharp, and all the little clues and puzzle pieces fell into place in Rose's mind. Harry was right, she realised. Snape really had nothing to do with it, after all

Or maybe it would have been on the terrible realisation after that, when Quirrell took off his turban and revealed Voldemort's monstrous, red-eyed face underneath. The moment where Rose came face to face with her worst nightmare, the wizard who killed her parents, who tried to kill her as an infant, who robbed her from the family she could have had. The wizard she was famous for supposedly killing, but who, it seemed, was still alive, even if barely hanging on.

Maybe the most important moment would have been when she looked into the large mirror she recognised from one of her late-night excursions (though she didn't look into it, back then), and saw her mirror image pocket the small, unassuming blood-red stone. The Philosopher's Stone, Quirrell had said, and she knew she couldn't let him have it.

Or maybe it would have been when Rose, through the blinding agony radiating from the lightning-shaped scar on her forehead, reached towards Quirrell and saw him shrink back in pain and fear. When she saw his skin burn and blister where she touched it, raw and red, and she held on to him as long as she could, until the searing pain got too much and unconsciousness claimed her.

But while that tale and those events have their place, this was not that story, because this was a story about Rose Pandora Potter, and to her, the most important part of this whole misadventure was what came after all of that.

She woke up in the infirmary to the sun shining bright through the windows, the chirping of birds filtering in from outside, and the sight of Harry sitting at her bedside. He didn't notice her immediately, but he soon looked up at the sound of her shifting in bed. Their eyes met.

"Hi," he said awkwardly.

"Hey," said Rose.

The silence between them stretched like the tension of a rubber band, each moment carrying towards the certainty that it will soon snap.

"I wanted to say that-"

"I just want to say-"

They fell silent again.

"Okay," said Rose. "You go first."

Harry hesitated. "I... I don't even know what I was going to say. I just- I'm sorry, I guess. For calling you an attention seeker. And for… Everything else, too."

"For calling me a-" Rose sputtered. "When did you call me that?"

"Er, back in March. Maybe you didn't hear it, in which case I didn't say anything, ever."

"Honestly, I don't remember," said Rose. "A lot of things happened in March. But I'm sorry too, for what it's worth," she added. "About the... things I've said, back during the chess game. I didn't mean it, and then the queen knocked you out and I-"

Harry nodded. "Yeah, I... I know." He hesitated. "You've been out for three days. It was... scary," he admitted, casting his eyes down. "So, apology accepted, I guess."

That was when the door to the infirmary slammed open, saving them from more awkward conversations and bitten-off words.

"Sorry, Madam Pomfrey, I didn't mean to be so loud," the newcomer apologized, and then gave a startled gasp upon seeing Rose. "Oh, you're awake!"

It was Hermione, with a library book in hand. She immediately rushed over to Rose and enveloped her in a tight hug. "Rose, oh, it's so good to see you!" she exclaimed. "We were so fast, as soon as I ran out with Harry he was there and found me, but when they got to you, you were already unconscious, and-"

She was barely making any sense, but Rose managed to gleam some information from her jumble of words.

"So you found Dumbledore?"

Hermione shook her head. "Not at first. He joined us down there just in time to get to you, but it was Professor Snape who found me first."

Rose's eyes widened. "Snape?" She repeated in disbelief.

"Yes, he saw me with Harry and he got very angry and demanded to know what I was doing. And, er, he took some points off from me. For being outside after curfew."

"Of course he did," said Harry. "I swear he'd take points off from me for everything, if I wasn't in his house."

"But technically, we were all outside after curfew that night," said Rose. "He should have taken points off from all of us. Even his own house." It was an entertaining thought, Snape being forced to take points off from Slytherin. Not that he would ever do that, Rose was sure.

Hermione looked slightly annoyed at their interruptions. "I told him that, and then later he gave my points back, so that's not really important."

"Gave your points back?" Rose and Harry echoed in sync, stunned.

"Yes, when I told him about how I solved the riddle with the potions. Apparently he made that. But that's not the point!" Hermione said forcefully. "The point is, I realised it wasn't him trying to steal- whatever that was, because he was up there, so I told him everything. And I swear, he looked terrified. I don't think I've ever seen a teacher that scared. He didn't even wait for me to finish, he just took off running towards that dog."

Rose nodded thoughtfully. "Turns out he really didn't have anything to do with it, after all."

"But then who was it? And what did they want?" asked Hermione.

"It was Quirrell, wasn't it?" Harry guessed.

"Yeah," said Rose. "Except not really. It was Quirrell, but he had Voldemort in the back of his head. And he wanted the Philosopher's stone."

Hermione winced at the name instinctively. Harry did too, but tried to suppress it. "What do you mean _he had Voldemort in the back of his head?"_ he demanded. "How does that sentence even make sense?"

"That's what he had been hiding under his turban all this time," Rose explained, gesturing with a hand fervently. "Voldemort somehow possessed him or something, I don't know, I didn't exactly stop to ask!"

A memory niggled at the back of her mind. Something had been bothering her ever since she had seen Quirrell - well, Voldemort, really - hunched over on the ground in pain. Something about a dark, heavy robe sweeping the ground, about cold and darkness, the sound of leaves crunching under her shoes, her own panicked breathing echoing in her ears, and then suddenly a mighty roar and the flapping of wings...

"Bloody hell," she said, with feeling. "He tried to kill me in March. In the Forbidden Forest." She swallowed thickly.

"The- What were you doing in the Forbidden Forest?" asked Hermione, raising raising her eyebrows.

Rose flushed. "Er, that's a secret. But," she lowered her voice conspiratorially, "I can tell you that it involved centaurs and a dragon."

"All right, I don't believe that," said Harry. "No way are there centaurs in the Forbidden Forest. Dragons, on the other hand, I can believe that."

Hermione disagreed. "Actually that part is true. There's a herd of centaurs living in the Forest, and _Hogwarts, A History_ says they've been here since before the castle was built. But no one has seen any dragons around here in at least two centuries!"

"Come on!" Harry griped. "The Scottish Highlands are basically a big empty field! It's the perfect place for any dragon to hide in plain sight with no humans seeing!"

"But there's only two dragon breeds native to Britain, and the Common Welsh Green nests in Wales, and Hebridean Blacks don't fly over to the mainland! And dragon breeding is highly regulated, so there's no way you could see any other dragons here!"

Rose leaned back in her bed with a smug smile and watched the argument unfold before her eyes. In the light of day, all that harrowing adventure and fear felt hazy and far away, but this, watching her brother and Hermione argue about dragons, this felt real and tangible and _here._

And in the years to come, even as the face of Voldemort would occasionally haunt her nightmares, what she remembered the clearest was never what she had to face alone in that last chamber. It was what came after.

It was the gifts on her bedside; a note from Susan - _"Get better soon!"_ -, a chocolate frog from Hannah, a letter from Ernie Macmillan, a wealth of Hogsmeade sweets from Cedric Diggory, and a thousand notes and gifts and well-wishes from people she had barely exchanged any words with, but who had clearly noticed her absence.

It was the squabble between Harry and Hermione that grew louder and louder in sound and intensity - "But illegal dragon trading is _illegal!"_ -, until Madam Pomfrey had enough and decided her patient needed rest, not shouting, and evicted the two from the hospital wing.

It was his brother's hesitant smile as he turned back from the doorway one last time.

"See you soon," he said, and Rose knew it had all been worth it.


End file.
